Blind Runner

The fate of three long-distance runners is interwoven in the latest production by the renowned Iranian Mehr Theatre Group.

Once a week, a husband visits his wife, a medical prisoner. Their conversations, which are monitored and eavesdropped on by cameras, become increasingly distant, leading to a lack of understanding and an inability to put the harshness of daily life into words.

However, at his wife's insistence, the husband agrees to accompany a young blind woman on a run in Paris. The two have to find a common rhythm and get to know each other during their training sessions.

After the competition, a new project emerges: they have to get to England, cross the Channel Tunnel and cover 38 kilometres in a few hours to avoid being run over by the first train in the morning.

Between the confinement of the prison and the feeling of freedom conveyed by the race, the action gradually takes on a hypnotic rhythm accompanied by Persian music. From this interplay emerges a poetic vision of struggle, mutual aid and the freedom to which we rush.

Amir Reza Koohestani remains true to his reduced stage approach and uses video to multiply the possibilities of the narrative by allowing the spectator's gaze to wander freely from the performers' bodies to their faces. He has undoubtedly created his most impressive and moving show.

«In the winter of 2009 in Iran, after the Green Movement had subsided after the government’s response to the demonstrators was to fire bullets, I started running. Freedom is a state, just like running; you set yourself an imaginary goal of moving from point A to point B, for example, but your goal is not to physically move, but rather to experience the freedom in between; that’s how it was for me. I ran until I couldn’t anymore. I ran until I was out of breath, until one of my leg muscles or my heart sounded the alarm; I didn’t even stop there. Are you still alive? You can still do it, another one hundred steps. It’s not surprising that in such a wrong way I did such damage to my body, a kind of self-revenge after the disappointment of the revolution.» - Amir Reza Koohestani

Direction Amir Reza Koohestani

Stage design and lighting Éric Soyer

Costumes Negar Nobakht Foghani

Video Yasi Moradi, Benjamin Krieg

Music Phillip Hohenwarter, Matthias Peyker

Dramaturgy Samaneh Ahmadian

Assistant director Dariush Faezi

Production Pierre Reis

With Ainaz Azarhoush and Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh